♦ MUSINSKY RARE BOOKS ♦ Sixteen illustrated books from the sixteenth century A short list for late winter No. 2 www.musinskyrarebooks.com + 1 212 579-2099 / [email protected] A woman’s private liturgy 1) HORAE B.M.V., use of Rome. Hore christifere virginis marie. Paris: Simon Vostre, [ca. 1508]. $32,000 A FINE, LARGE, RED-RULED COPY of the most lavishly illustrated of Simon Vostre’s quarto editions, called the “grandes heures” as much for the richness of their illustrative material as for their format. Vostre’s complete new series of fourteen very large full-page metalcuts, attributed to the workshop of Jean Pichore, first appeared in this edition; only three had appeared previously. This copy is bound with six pages of contemporary manuscript prayers and devout meditations by a woman, preserved by the binder Capé when the copy was luxuriously rebound in the 19th century in a retrospective style. 4to. 14 full-page and many smaller metalcuts, including page borders assembled from individual cuts. 19th-century red goatskin with a strapwork décor, by Capé. The Robert Hoe - Cortland Bishop - Mary S. Collins copy. See more: Horae One of three known copies 2) CIBOULE, Robert. Le Livre de la perfection de la vie crestienne. Paris: Philippe Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, [ca. 1510]. $6750 Probable FIRST EDITION of a treatise on the path to spiritual enlightenment, an eight-step plan devised by a well- known contemporary preacher. Although written in French in order to reach a broad audience, the ascetic spiritual path proposed by Ciboule required a quasi- monastic existence, inaccessible to most laypeople. A fragmentary copy survives of an undated edition printed by Gilles Couteau, who was active from 1491 to 1523; the priority of these two rare editions has not been established. 8vo. Bâtarde types. Metalcut devices of the printer and publisher, and full-page metalcut of the Trinity and the Church (also used in the preceding Vostre Horae). 18th- century boards. Provenance: Carmelites of Valenciennes. See more: Ciboule See also cover illustration Herculean labors 3) SALIS, Baptista de (Trovamala). Summa Roselle de casibus conscientie. Strassburg: Johann Knobloch, 26 February 1516. $6500 FIRST CORRECT EDITION of a popular guide to canon law, revised and edited by the important Strassburg humanist Ottmar Nachtgall (Luscinius), who described the toils of correcting the error-ridden text as a “Herculean labor.” Arranged alphabetically by subject, from Abbas to Uxor, the work includes detailed guidelines for various topics, from absolution and adultery to novices, relics, and usury. The large woodcut title border by Hans Baldung Grien shows Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I enthroned, holding scepter and orb. The copy has interesting eastern European provenance and retains its well-preserved Moravian binding. Folio. Woodcut title border. Contemporary half pigskin over wooden boards. From the library of the Czech humanist Franciscus Godefridus Troilus à Lessoth, with his large woodcut bookplate. See more: Salis Buying books and wine 4) GEILER VON KAISERSBERG, Johann; PAULI, Johann. Die brösamlin. Strassburg: Johannes Grüninger, 1517. $20,000 ONLY EDITION of this illustrated collection of sermons of the peerless pre-Reformation Alsatian preacher Johannes Geiler. Geiler preached in German, mainly in the Strassburg Cathedral, from his Latin notes, and the compilations of his sermons were made by auditors, in this case the generally reliable Johann Pauli. Geiler’s sermons were known for his colorful language, erudition, and uncommon exempla. Arranged thematically, each subject is explored from various angles; thus, for example, a section relating to merchants includes moral guidelines for commercial behavior and on the sins and temptations of commerce, as well as extended comparisons of merchants to the Devil. Folio. Title printed in red and black within woodcut border, 34 woodcut illustrations by the Master H. F., Hans Schäufelein, and others. Contemporary German blind- tooled pigskin over wooden boards. Provenance: the Carthusians of Buxheim, with purchase note by Wilhelm von Zell, the monastery’s domicellus (cellarer). See more: Geiler von Kaisersburg Portable glossed Bible 5) BIBLE, Latin. Biblia cum ... apparatu. Lyon: Jacques Mareschal [for Simon Vincent], 16 October 1519. $6500 A complete portable Bible printed in very small types, containing finding aids and an ample scholarly apparatus for the use of theology students and scholars; this copy with contemporary annotations and in a contemporary, probably Flemish binding. Although economically printed, the Bible is enlivened by hundreds of historiated woodcut initials from woodcut alphabets designed by Guillaume Leroy, who also designed the six-part full-page woodcut of the Creation. This is the fourth of six editions of Mareschal’s useful “pocket” Bibles, which were the first Bible editions to include a RHYMING MNEMONIC BIBLICAL SUMMARY by the Minorite friar Franciscus Gothi, in which each four-line verse summarizes a Biblical chapter. 8vo. Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards. See more: Bible The importance of an impartial judiciary 6) ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG, Archbishop and Elector of Mainz. Meintzisch hoffgerichts Ordnung. [Bound with:] Undergerichts ordnung des Ertzstiffts Meyntz. Mainz: Johann Schöffer, 1521 / 1534. $3800 FIRST EDITION of the judicial statutes of the Electorate of Mainz, the largest ecclesiastical province of Germany and one of the most prestigious and powerful states of the Holy Roman Empire; bound with the first edition of the statutes of the lower court of the Mainz Prince-Bishopric. Both these influential procedural codes explicitly adopted the common law (ius commune), a combination of Roman and canon law, and both laid down precise rules for court procedure. They are filled with down-to-earth details, such as where the courts reside, who should serve in them, how trials are to be conducted, the duties of court scribes. The Hofgerichts Ordnung provides oaths for different court officials and for special segments of the population (including witnesses, the poor, and Jews), and establishes the right of the poor to legal representation. 2 volumes in one, small folio. Ten-block woodcut title border. Bound with a folding leaf of contemporary manuscript commentary. Modern boards. See more: Mainz law A Gallic take on human foibles 7) BRANT, Sebastian; DROUYN, Jean. La grand nef des folz du monde. Lyon: François Juste, (1529-) 1530. $35,000 A French prose adaptation of Brant’s allegorical satire, illustrated with Lyonese blocks copied from the original Basel woodcut series: A SUPERB FRENCH WOODCUT BOOK, FROM THE LIBRARY OF AMBROISE FIRMIN-FIDOT. Drouyn, a law clerk from Amiens, probably based his prose version on a French verse translation by Pierre Riviere, rather than on Jacob Locher’s Latin translation of Brant’s German satire. Only a few sixteenth-century French- language editions of the Narrenschiff are recorded; some vernacular editions may have been lost. This edition is the earliest known book published by François Juste alone. 4to. Gothic types. Title printed in red and black. 119 woodcut illustrations. 18th-century French red morocco. Firmin-Didot bookplate. See more: Brant A landmark of German book illustration 8) PETRARCH MASTER, artist. — JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus. Warhafftige Hystorien ... auss Trogo Pompeio gezoge[n]. 1531. [Bound with:] HERODIANUS. Der Fürtrefflich Griechisch geschicht schreiber Herodianus. 19 August 1531. [Bound with:] CICERO, Marcus Tullius. Officia [in German]. 7 December 1531. All Augsburg: Heinrich Steiner. $20,000 A FINE COPY of three important editions of classical texts in the first or second German translations, containing among the earliest appearances of the outstanding woodcut illustration cycle attributed to the so-called Petrarca- Meister. The over 150 woodcuts contain vignettes of contemporary Renaissance life: a notary’s office, a conjurer, an armorer's shop, a scriptorium, a painter’s studio, a domestic interior with eight children, a dancing bear, an amputation and a phlebotomy, doctors consulting, drunken men fighting, a construction site, etc. Although the illustrator, whose identity has long been debated, was later named after Steiner’s edition of Petrarch, De remediis, that work did not appear until 1532. 3 vols. in one, folio, contemporary blind-stamped alum- tawed pigskin over wooden boards. See more: Petrarca-Meister How to handle it all 9) [LE ROY, François]. Le Dialogue de consolation entre l’ame et raison. Paris: [Étienne Caveiller for] Denis Janot, 1537. $3000 A dialectical interchange between reason and the tormented soul, by a monk of the order of Fontevrault, a “double” monastery, populated by both monks and nuns, who resided in separate convents but were governed by a single Abbess. In this internal dialogue the Soul, tormented by temptations and spiritual tribulations, is counseled by Reason, who provides consolation in the form of contemplation and devout meditation. The work is illustrated with a full-page metalcut of the Pentecost, showing the Trinity above the assembled Church and nations,. This cut made repeated appearances in Parisian religious books from the end of the fifteenth century to the latter sixteenth century. The plate in this edition is a very close copy of the one used in numbers 1 and 2 above. 8vo. Title in red and black within metalcut border, full- page metalcut illustration. Modern goatskin. See more: Le Roy Math is no. 1 10) LA PERRIÈRE, Guillaume de. Les Considérations des quatre mondes. Lyon: Macé Bonhomme [for Jean Mounier and Jean Perrin in Toulouse], 1552. $5800 FIRST EDITION of a cosmological work containing four hundred French HERMETIC QUATRAINS on the four worlds: divine, angelic, celestial, and “sensible” (that which can be grasped by the senses). The preface to part one contains a lengthy ENCOMIUM OF MATHEMATICS and mathematical symbolization as the best way to apprehend what the human mind cannot otherwise understand. In his prefaces to each part La Perrière praises mathematicians and scientists, including Pacioli and the geometrician Bouelles. La Perrière was the author of the first French emblem book, the Théâtre des bons engins (1539).